Ah, there it is. That sinking feeling. That nagging that begins in the core of the belly and spreads outward through the rest of my torso like capillaries circulating the rue. Rue (n): sadness associated with a sense of disappointment; French for "avenue." In this case it's both - the road of the heavyhearted.

Two years ago I sat with these sensations a lot: the sense of idleness, aimlessness, and the constant need to quiet them with "work," no matter what that looked like. I had just moved to Nashville and had a whopping two friends, one of whom had to like me because she was my roommate and because I bought coke floats for us whenever we drove by Cookout. The other was a driver who picked me up via the Lyft app and I really didn't see him much because I had my own car now.* I couldn't avoid the empty space that was left by my lack of familiarity and social life. I felt that with each passing day that I was not engaged by a set schedule (and actively depleting bank account), I was wasting my time. I had planned and budgeted for this hiatus thinking it would be a joyful, creative endeavor and yet it was supremely painful. Until it wasn't. Still, I had to wade through a lot of personal development and fear first. That was the part that felt like pulling teeth. That was the labor that gave me my last record. And that is the labor that I am currently experiencing yet again, in its own way and on its own terms.

This, I guess, is how my creative process works.